“Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people.” Acts 11:23-25 GOD AT WORK!
Laborers in the harvest
Eleven miles of water in the Straits of Belle Isle couldn’t keep young men from crossing the straits to connect with young women on the other side. There were those who married young women from Flowers Cove on the Newfoundland side living on the Labrador side, and some from the Labrador living on the island. So it was, that the “M.G.M.” went into Flower’s Cove in 1959 on the way up the coast to have some open-air meetings, knowing there were people who were saved in meetings in Labrador who had family members there. However, there was not a good reception in Flowers Cove. It was mainly the “spiritual advisor” who was opposed, but because of his position, he had a lot of influence on how people reacted to the preaching of the Gospel.
Because they could not remain tied up at the wharf in Flowers Cove, Joe Rose, who had a daughter married at L’Anse Amor, Labrador, told them they could tie up on his small wharf. He also said that they should go across the harbour to Nameless Cove (part of Flower’s Cove), and offered to guide them there. They were able to tie up in Nameless Cove at the wharf of Mr. Richard Dempster who had been in the British Navy during WW1, and appreciated seeing a British ex-navy boat like the “M.G.M.” His wife was a born-again believer and was so glad to hear the Gospel preached, that they opened their home for the preachers to have meetings in their large kitchen. Their one daughter lived across the straits next door to Joe Rose’s daughter. The Dempsters had three grown sons, one living right next to them who was married to a woman from L’Anse au Loup, and two unmarried sons living with them. Those two also married two young women from L’Anse au Loup later.
One of the denominational “spiritual advisors” who lived in Flowers Cove came into the Dempster’s home very upset because “those preachers who upset the Labrador coast, and broke up families” had come to Flowers Cove. He was determined they could not stay there to preach and insisted that the Dempsters would not allow them to stay. However, he found out that Mrs. Dempster who had always been quite outspoken about her personal faith in Christ, could be outspoken in other ways also. Even though Mr. Dempster was a kind man, he was also a very firm man, and was not going to be told what he could or could not do. Not by a minister, or anyone else.
Mr. Richard Dempster was moved by the Holy Spirit to believe the Gospel when he listened to “The Family Bible Hour” on the radio, and was saved by God’s grace. The preachers were there long enough to know there was an interest in the Gospel on the part of quite a few people there. But because it was getting late in the season, they had to pick their weather to travel to Corner Brook to put the boat up for the winter. There was no road all the way down to Flowers Cove at that time so they had to wait to come back at another time.
It was late in the fall or early winter in 1960 -1961 that Bert Joyce went to Parsons Pond for a week or two of meetings. When he flew up, he dropped Ewart Bridle and John Ryan, brothers in Christ in the Red Bay assembly, off at Flowers Cove to visit. They knew a lot of people there and wanted to visit around. During the time they were there, they had nightly meetings in the Dempster’s house that lasted the whole evening. A number of men their own age who they knew, came to the house each night, and they visited them in the day. The result was that during the ten days they were there a good number of those men professed faith in Christ.
Those men, and their wives who were saved shortly thereafter, were in the foundation of that work. They all showed an interest in the things of God and a willingness to go forward in faith. God was pleased to bless His word and their efforts, so a work was begun there in 1959, that was added to in 1960-61. As the work grew, it became established in the faith and in the fall of 1964 the first Gospel Hall was built there.
The Red Bay assembly was new then and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the Gospel. The believers in Red Bay had taken to heart what they had been taught, and reached out to others in that community as well as those further up and down the straits. Mr. John Layden and his wife, Mr. Ham Layden, Mr. Lewellyn Pike and quite a number of other people had interest in various places because of intermarriages, business and fishing connections and other personal connections, that kept them active in the work of the Lord. The Joyce’s living there also was a catalyst to the work. Bert Joyce dropped in to Flowers Cove quite often in his journeys by plane up and down the coast, and so an on- going interest in the Gospel was maintained in Nameless Cove.
There was an obvious interest in an assembly being gathered there to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. After a winter in Charlottetown, Labrador, George and Mona Campbell moved into a small travel-trailer at Nameless Cove for a while and then into a room or two of Dudley’s house for the next winter. Gospel preaching and Bible teaching established the believers there more and more.
The next year a new Gospel Hall was built at English Point, Labrador so the Campbells moved there with their growing family after having spent a few months in Scotland with Mona’s family. An apartment was made in the basement of the new hall at English Point, and the Campbells lived there until 1969. Mr. and Mrs. Russell and Ruth Harris moved to Flowers Cove and stayed in Dudley’s house for a couple of years. Mr. Russell Harris was not too well physically, but that didn’t keep him from visiting people regularly and teaching the believers so that they were well established in assembly principles when the assembly began breaking bread there in 1963.
Believers were baptized there and meetings were held in Dudley Dempster’s unfinished house. The first baptism in Flower’s Cove was held in the basement of Clyde Dempster’s house. A portable baptistry was set up there and the basement was filled with people to be baptized and to watch the baptism. The wedding of Dudley and Elizabeth Dempster was held in the upstairs of the house Dudley had built, which was where the people who were saved, met to hold the Gospel meetings and other assembly meetings. The night of the wedding, there were so many people upstairs that the floor had to be propped up.
When Mr. and Mrs. Russell Harris were living there, he got his heart set on Don Dempster who was one who did not have interest in the Gospel. Time after time through the winter, Mr. Harris would go hopping over the snow banks to get to Don’s house so he could get a word about the Gospel into the conversation. His persistence paid off, and Don was saved that winter. There is more to be said about the work at Flower’s Cove/Nameless Cove that will be addressed later.
The road was opened to the whole Northern Peninsula in 1962 so there was travel by road from St. Anthony to Corner Brook, even though it was rough and very hard on tires. I recall going to Flowers Cove and getting a ride in Robert McIllwaine’s Piper Cub to the Labrador conference in the spring. He landed on the road to pick us up. The conference was held in the 24x40 foot hall at L’Anse au Loup. There was a lot of snow that spring and outside the door of the little hall there were a lot of snow humps that turned out to be dogs from the many teams that brought people from as far as Red Bay to the conference. They would curl up and sleep even while being covered with the snow fall. Because of the continual snowfall, the conference ended up lasting five days. Every night there was an hour or more of testimonies before the Gospel was preached.
Pierce Linstead was a good song leader, so the singing was good and hearty before every meeting, and especially at the Gospel meetings. The hall was so packed with people the aisle was filled, so men spoke from where they were all over the building. I can recall Uncle John Layden, who was a hearty man, standing up on his chair to speak and people around him were ready to grab him because they thought the chair would break or tip over. Teaching in those times was plain and practical which was appropriate to the beginning of a new work. Everybody needed to hear in plain speech what needed to be understood.
Conferences have been an important part of the assemblies on that coast. Fellowship between the various assemblies is maintained and strengthened when the three conferences are held at different times of the year. The believers in Flowers Cove have a special tie to Labrador even though they are separated by eleven miles of water.
In the summer of 1962 while we were building the Gospel Hall at Parsons Pond, Mr. Peter Mathews came from Langley, BC to help in the work. He was an able teacher of the scriptures and an elder in the Langley assembly. For a number of years, he had been wanting to go to Indonesia with his family to do missionary work in that country, but the door had not been opened in spite of his many attempts. Donald Moffatt had spent a number of years in St. John’s and had maintained his interest in Newfoundland. He knew Peter and Blanche Mathews and he knew of their interest in missionary work, even though they were in their forties. He encouraged him to make a visit to Newfoundland and contacted Mr. Harris, who was aware that Mr. Barbour wouldn’t be able to stay long enough to finish building the Parsons Pond Gospel Hall. He also knew that if the local brothers and I were left to finish the building, it would be rougher than he wanted. So, he was very glad when Mr. Mathews came.
Peter Mathews was saved when he was fifteen, and right away began certain habits that would help him in the study of the scriptures. When he, and quite a number of young men were called up for military service during WWII, they went as conscientious objects to a camp in the interior of British Columbia, where they served their country in various ways. Some of those young men spent a lot of time in the scriptures and became proficient teachers and leaders in assemblies in British Columbia. One of those men was Bill Funston, the father of Bryan Funston who came to Newfoundland in 1968 to join in the work of the Lord.
Peter became a carpenter and was skilled and precise as a workman. As an independent building contractor, his reputation as a builder who could be trusted to do good work was important. From foundation work to finishing work, Peter Mathews was a good workman. He had the same characteristics when it came to teaching the word of God, and his teaching was very needed over the forty-some years he and his wife served the Lord in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Barbour had been taking the lead on building the hall up until then, but he needed to go home. Mr. Mathews was an independent building contractor himself, and was very skilled at finishing work, so his coming was at the right time. The outside was finished and inside work required better skills than most of us had who were working on the building. One morning not long after daybreak, Bert Joyce landed on the pond and asked Mr. Mathews and me if we would go with him to Red Bay for the day to lay out the foundation of an airplane-hanger he wanted to build. Peter agreed and wanted me to go with him so we could do the job quickly and get back to Parsons Pond the same day.
It took about an hour in the airplane to get to Red Bay. That was my first visit to that community although I knew some of the believers I had met in other places. The Gospel work began in Red Bay when a Pentecostal preacher named Mr. Mitchell had preached there and built a little building to preach in. For some reason he could not get anything established. Bert Joyce and George Campbell went there to have meetings in the winter of 1957 – 1958. The night Mr. Alan Moores died was the night Mr. John Layden was saved. They were able to buy the building Mr. Mitchell had made and the meetings were held there. From then on quite a number of people were saved by God’s grace, and an assembly began breaking bread when the Joyce’s moved there.
A road had been put through to Red Bay from farther up the straits after a bridge had been built over the “Mighty Pinware River.” Red Bay was then connected to communities in the straits right up to some of the communities in Quebec. It was nearly thirty years later that the Labrador highway was finished and other communities farther north were linked up, including Charlottetown where there was another assembly gathered to the name of the Lord. Mr. Joyce used his airplane to get from place to place before there was the road, but he was limited to skis and floats for the most part. He used floats in the summer and skis in the winter, but during the other seasons he was extremely limited unless he had an airstrip. So, he made one not far from his home in Red Bay, and needed a safe place to keep his plane.
The building he wanted had sloping walls and so needed a cement foundation that was angled to take the sideways pressure of wind and snow. That was no problem for Peter
Mathews so we set to work and by four o’clock the forms were ready for cement. That evening Bert had us back in Parsons Pond for work the next day.
The Joyce’s made their family home there for about fifteen years. Albert Ramsay, Fred Holder and some other brethren came to help in preaching the Gospel and teaching for believers. The hall they had bought from the Pentecostals became too small for the needs of the assembly, so in the late 1970s and early 1980s another Gospel Hall was built. The Joyce family moved in the early 1970s to Corner Brook where there was better access to their family’s needs when he was away in meetings in different places in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Maritimes and other places.
I recall speaking at the funeral of Mr. Lewellyn Pike at Red Bay, and the wind was so high and temperature so cold when we were at the graveyard, that one ear and one side of my face froze. Then I knew why the men didn’t take off their hoods and hats for more than a moment or so at a time when prayer was made at the grave. I am made aware of Red Bay every time the weather gets cold. One side of my face starts to turn white, and one ear burns.
Red Bay is like a lot of other places where fishing was the only way to make money locally. Even though people there were not rich, they could make enough to survive as long as they could fish. In recent years, the fishery has changed so much that only a few young people are living in Red Bay. Most of the young people up to forty years old have gone to other places in Canada to live and work. The faithful few believers who are still there, find it hard to maintain a testimony, but still are “faint yet pursuing.”
In the communities of Forteau/English Point and L’Anse au Loup there are more opportunities for employment and schooling then at Red Bay. A fish plant, hospital, highway department, senior’s homes and other commercial enterprises have kept quite a lot of young people there. They are able to make enough money for personal life, and are able to be involved in assembly life. It is likely that in future years the majority of young people will go to major cities in Canada where they can find employment using their college and university training.
The English Point assembly met for a number of years in a portable hall. Then in the early 1960s a Gospel Hall was built that accommodated the needs at that time. In the late 1970s it was decided to build a larger hall nearby, and the Dryburgh family that had been living in the basement apartment, got the whole building and made it into their family home. They had come from Scotland in 1975 to spend full time in the work of the Lord.
Alex had first come as a young man in the late 1960s to be with George Campbell, Wallace Buckle and others on the second Gospel boat, the “Northern Light IV.” George Campbell had bought that boat from the Grenfell Association where it had once been used as a doctor’s boat going from place to place having clinics. Grenfell Association no longer needed it, and it was very suitable for traveling on the Quebec and Labrador coast where there was an exercise on the part of both Mr. Campbell and Mr. Buckle to reach out with the Gospel.
Mr. Vern Markle was with them for most of the years they went along that south shore. A lot of labor and effort went into the work of the Gospel on the Quebec coast from the 1960s into the 1980s. Souls were saved in several places that were reached by the brothers who were on the “Northern Light.” A Gospel Hall was built at Old Fort and meetings held there for a number of years. Each winter for around ten years David Hunt and others with him, travel by snowmobile along the Quebec shore visiting house-to- house with calendars and Christian literature. They also go from Goose Bay north to those villages that can be only be reached by snowmobile in the winter and boat in the summer, or by airplane.
The Dryburgh’s lived on the Labrador coast for about fifteen years and then moved to Ontario. Labrador is a special place of interest in the hearts of Alex and Irene, and in the hearts of the people toward them by those who knew them when they lived there. They have returned quite often to have teaching meetings in the assemblies in both Newfoundland and Labrador.
A second Gospel Hall was built in L’Anse au Loup which was attached to the original one. It was more than twice the size and had plenty of room for the conferences, funerals and special meetings. Stanford Fowler of the L’Anse au Loup assembly headed up that work. He was a good builder but had kidney failure and had to go to St. John’s where he could get dialysis until he passed away. Another addition was put on the hall which made things more convenient. There was a fiftieth anniversary held in that hall a few years before it was taken down and a new Gospel Hall was built early in the 2000s headed up by Alfred Belbin. On the Labrador coast all of the original assembly halls have been replaced. Don Wardell came from Iowa, and helped build the present Red Bay Hall. Others came to help on the Charlottetown Hall. Laborers in the harvest do more than preach and teach.
For a good number of years Wallace and Olive Buckle lived at Flowers Cove and then moved to Goose Bay to start a new work there. Gospel meetings and believers’ meetings were held in a Gospel Hall they built there. Alex Dryburgh, David Swan and others helped the Buckles in that work. He had a small airplane that he used for getting to different places on that part of Labrador and for following up the work done previously. It was while they were living there the Labrador highway was finished making road travel possible. They were there for about fifteen years before moving to the St. John’s area.
The ripe harvest field is reached by many ways, and many laborers who go into the harvest to labor in the Gospel. There are sisters in Christ who teach students they have never seen by postal Bible studies. Children in many places are getting the Gospel and the seed of the word of God is being sown and watered. There are health-care workers and builders who go to out-of-the-way places as well as to cities, who are being used by God. When God’s people are available to Him, He will make sure they will be used. There are those whose work is to maintain what has been established, whether it be in Bible-teaching or work on buildings. The combination of natural talents and spiritual gifts are used by God to effectively further the work of the kingdom of God. When a believer is willing to honestly say, “Lord, what will Thou have me to do?” and mean it, they will find those words are for us as well as the apostle Paul.